'There’s gonna be a revolution' (Show House Magazine)

'There’s gonna be a revolution' - By Cheryl Markosky for Show House Magazine, July 2012.

You might recall the story on these pages 18 months ago about building insurance company BLP (blpinsurance.com) storming the property marketing-equivalent of the Bastille. The colourful ad featured Liberty heading up BLP’s version of the July revolution of 1830, bringing liberté, egalité and fraternité to the world of 10-year building defects insurance.

In a new François Hollande-style ad (no you don’t get taxed just for the privilege of reading it). BLP goes one stage further from “kicking out the old guard” and replacing it with a “fresh philosophy that embraces the future”. BLP’s modern take on rescuing the subsidence-pestered peasants shows new CEO Kim Vernau holding the BLP flag, with BLP’s clients replacing the soldiers, and building equipment instead of guns.

“The original marketing strategy and campaign kicked off in 2010 through TC Communications,” explains Adrian Stahl, BLP’s marketing manager. “One problem we had was brand awareness and coming up with this revolutionary idea got a great reaction from the industry. The media liked it, as it wasn’t just another brick or component on the page.”

Going off the wall a bit enabled BLP to create online games with muskets which led to clients winning boat trips and clay pigeon shooting jaunts.

“We had great fun with the creative side of the whole campaign, and everything we did added to this revolutionary feel,” says Stahl. “We were lucky that our managing director was very open to this out-of-the-box thinking, which certainly paid off.”

But now has come the time to go one stage further, leading to this contemporary translation of the earlier 18th-century call to arms. The new advert has been placed in quality magazines, such as this one, along with less-superior print publications (only joking Estates Gazette and other construction press titles).

“We’ve had a lot of referrals and it’s really helped our brand image,” believes Stahl, who says many people have heard of Zurich or NHBC, but now word is getting round about BLP. Another twist is clients’ names and testimonials popping up on online ads – “it’s not just us selling ourselves for a change,” adds Stahl.

From a starting point of not doing much marketing in the past, BLP has hit its stride. Stahl says, however, that it was right to wait until the company got to this point. “It would have been too early and we had to get our ducks in a row first. But the gloves are off now and we’re starting to fight our corner.”